Monday

Wow was my my first thought when my son and I first saw this set in the stores. I remember the old landspeeder set from the 1999 Lego range (7110 Landspeeder) but I never bought it. I always love the Episode 4-6 models so this kit is a must to have. But why is it double the price in Australia compared to the US (and our dollar is worth more the the US dollar)? US$25 is fine (about AUD$23) but no, Lego Australia sells it for AUD$49 (US$55)!!

Anyway back with the review of the Lego 8092 Luke’s Landspeeder kit. Inside the smallish box are three plastic bags of bricks, two loose tubes and an instruction booklet. I notice no sticker sheets – excellent, I wish Lego would stop the stickers and print the bricks instead. It says there are 163 pieces and I ended up with six spare.

Lego 8092 has six minifigures – well five normal ones and a little droid. This kit has the newer Star Wars minifigure faces. Lego, in their wisdom, has tried to add more expression the the minifig faces by adding a small white dot to their eyes. I don’t like it as it isn’t like the other minifigs and makes a little like anime style (the new Yoda is a good example).

Luke Skywalker and Old Ben Kenobi minifigures look much the same as other versions but have slight changes. The minifigs have more detail printed on them. Luke has slightly changed body that has a new design printed with a larger belt, his pants a little different as well. Luke also has long blonde hair compared to the older kit – doesn’t look bad at all. Ben looks to have more creases in his Jedi robes and has a belt. These two minifigures come with blue lightsabers.

C-3P0 and R2-D2 are in this set. The C-3P0 minifigure looks the same to me, no much if anything has changed. R2-D2 hasthe whole head printed and looks the part, it’s a pity the body has only the front part printed.

This kit come with one Imperial Sandtrooper. This is different to Stormtroopers by having a black cloth shoulder pauldron and a re-breather. This is only available in this set.
The other minifigure is just a few bricks put together to make a little sentry droid. Nice with the Sandtrooper but not a biggy.

Doing a search on minifigures the Luke, Ben and Sandtrooper are not available in any other set and the C-3P0 and R2-D2 are only available in large expensive sets, so that is pretty good I think.

Now onto the Landspeeder. This looks much better than the 1999 version of the Landspeeder . It is still the same colour scheme as the old model but has much more detail and is bigger. The flexible plastic pipe at the front of the craft, the curved windscreen, the opening boot are great. The boot fits the lightsabers but you have to pull them apart. The cockpit has room for Luke and Ben and at side of the centre engine is enough space to put the C-3P0 and R2-D2 Lego minifigures. The landspeeder has pieces on the bottom so it looks a bit like it’s floating (plus can be pushed around easier). The speeder is about 15cm long and 5cm wide.

All in all a great set except for the rip-off price from Lego Australia. But of course now it is an older set the set is getting up in price because it is rare and people are hunting for it.